POTM Blog Issue #18: Cash Doesn't Chase

Every closed sale in the MLS carries a small field that almost nobody reads: how the buyer paid. Over the last 12 months that field was reported on nearly every governed closing in San Francisco, which makes it one of the most complete signals we have. This issue follows it.

Two rules first, because this statistic is easy to abuse. Every share below counts only sales where financing was actually reported, and every number is a median or a simple count, never an average.

So: of the 2,292 house sales in the last 12 months, 30.9 percent of those with reported financing closed in cash. A year earlier it was 24.9 percent. For condos it is higher still, 36.9 percent, up from 34.6. Read quickly, that sounds like a city being bought with suitcases of money. Read carefully, it says something almost opposite, because the cash is not where the competition is.

For national scale: NAR's July 2026 buyer survey puts all-cash at 26 percent of existing-home sales nationally, and Redfin's county-records measure ran about a third of all United States purchases when it last peaked in early 2024. Those two are counted differently from each other and from our strict MLS field, so I cite them for scale rather than comparison. The point they make together is that San Francisco's cash share is not the anomaly. What is local is where the cash sits.

The ladder of cash

Line the market up by price and the pattern is immediate. Between $1M and $3M, where most of the city's families are shopping, roughly one house sale in four or five is cash. Cross $3M and it jumps to about half. At $5M and above, six in ten houses sell for cash, and 88 percent of the small number of $5M+ condo sales did, 27 closings, a sample we label directional rather than argued from.

By the numbers

Price band	Houses: cash share	Houses: sale vs asking	Condos: cash share	Condos: sale vs asking
Under $1M	26.9% (199 sales)	+1.5%	32.0% (951 sales)	at asking
$1M to $1.5M	19.6% (478)	+15.6%	31.2% (668)	+0.6%
$1.5M to $2M	26.4% (519)	+27.2%	38.4% (432)	+3.8%
$2M to $3M	27.2% (545)	+23.9%	47.7% (270)	+6.3%
$3M to $5M	48.7% (380)	+16.5%	67.6% (130)	+2.1%
$5M and above	59.6% (171)	+2.7%	88.0% (27, directional)	at asking

Now put the overbids next to that ladder. House overbids peak exactly where cash is scarcest: the $1.5M to $2M band sold a median 27.2 percent over asking, and only 26.4 percent of those sales were cash. At $5M and above, where cash dominates, the typical house closed 2.7 percent over asking and the typical condo closed at asking. The rungs where buyers borrow are the rungs where buyers chase.

The cash map

The same inversion shows up on the map. Put the cash map next to the competition map and they read as negatives of each other: the ink pools along the northern waterfront and the luxury spine, the heat pools in the Sunset belt and the south.

Two maps of the same 12 months, at the grain the city is lived in: the 90 MLS subdistricts. Left, who paid cash: the share of each neighborhood's closings, among those with buyer financing reported, that closed without a loan, August 12, 2025 through August 11, 2026; the darker the ink, the heavier the cash. Right, where buyers competed: each neighborhood's typical sale as a percentage of its own asking price, same window. Neighborhoods with fewer than 15 closings are grey rather than guessed. Golden Gate Park, the Presidio and Lincoln Park are unshaded. San Francisco MLS via POTM Command.

Who paid cash, by neighborhood

Cash share of closings with reported financing. Grey: fewer than 15 closings

0%66.7%, Financial District

Where buyers competed, by neighborhood

Typical sale vs its own asking price, same window

at asking+30.4%, Outer Sunset

The two maps read as negatives of each other: the ink pools along the northern waterfront and the luxury spine, the heat pools in the Sunset belt and the south. Central Sunset is the caution against overreading the pattern, 36.4% cash and still +27.1%. The tilt is a tendency. The ceiling is the strict part: no neighborhood where cash reaches half of sales closes more than 2.6 points over asking.

Among the 76 neighborhoods with reliable annual samples, the five where cash is most common are the Financial District and Barbary Coast at 66.7 percent, North Waterfront at 58.1, the Marina at 52.2, Cow Hollow at 51.9 and Pacific Heights at 51.5. Every one of them sold within about two and a half points of asking. Two of the five sold at or below it, and none cleared more than 2.6 points over.

The bottom of the cash list is the top of the effort list. Visitacion Valley at 10.0 percent cash, Bayview at 10.2, the Outer Mission at 11.4, Midtown Terrace at 11.5, Silver Terrace at 12.5. And one neighborhood, Westwood Highlands, recorded 15 closings and not a single reported cash sale. These are house neighborhoods where nearly everyone borrows, and most of them cleared 7 to 20 percent over asking.

Across all 76 neighborhoods with reliable reads, the tilt is consistent: more cash tends to mean closer to asking. It is a tilt, not a law. The overbid champions of the Sunset belt still run about one cash sale in four, and Central Sunset manages 36 percent cash while clearing 27 percent over asking. But the ceiling is unmistakable: in every neighborhood where cash reaches half of sales, the typical close is within 2.6 points of asking. It is the same shape Issue #17 found from the other direction.

Cash doesn't chase

Pacific Heights

+2.1%

typical sale vs asking, with 51.5% of sales in cash

when half the room can write a check, nobody has to shout; 249 closings in the year

The Outer Sunset

+30.4%

typical sale vs asking, with 24.3% of sales in cash

three in four buyers carry a loan, and they are bidding against each other; 82 closings

Here is the reading I trust, and I will label it as a reading. A financed buyer in a competitive band is bidding a monthly payment, and against other financed buyers, which is why the citywide $1.5M to $2M house clears 27 percent over list and the Outer Sunset clears 30. A cash buyer at the top of the market is usually choosing among several available properties, not fighting for the only one. Cash concentrates where inventory sits, condos downtown and the luxury tier, and in those segments the sale lands at the list price because nobody is forced to chase. The overbid war is, almost by definition, a war between mortgages.

What this is not: cash share is not a demand meter, and it says nothing about any single sale. A cash-heavy neighborhood can be slow, downtown condos sit a median 27 to 44 days on market, while a mortgage neighborhood moves in about 13. Two different markets, both visible in the same field. And this issue deliberately makes no claim about whether an individual cash sale closes higher or lower than a financed one in the same segment; that comparison needs a different cut of the data, and it is the natural follow-up.

If you are selling, if you are buying

If you are selling in a low-cash neighborhood, your buyer pool is financed, so the offers that come with loans are not the weak ones. They are the market. Preparation and a list price that invites the crowd matter more than holding out for a mythical cash buyer who mostly is not coming. Selling in a cash-heavy segment, certainty is negotiable currency, but do not expect the auction. Price to the comp, not to the headline overbid from a house neighborhood.

If you are buying with a loan in a cash-heavy segment, you are more viable than the folklore says: at asking, with time on market, a well-underwritten financed offer competes. Buying with a loan in a low-cash neighborhood means your competition is other borrowers, and the winning bid is set by payment tolerance, not by checkbooks. Either way, the first question about your block is not how hot is the market. It is who are you actually bidding against, and this field answers it.

AI Corridor Scoreboard

One reading per issue on the city's softest segment, the condos near the new AI offices, so you can watch the turn as it happens.

Issue	Date	Reading	Call
#17	Aug 9, 2026	Zero, which is the cleanest reading this scoreboard has produced. Across 368 corridor condo closings so far in 2026, not one sold $1,000,000 over asking, and the typical one closed slightly under asking: South Beach 0.7% below on 183 sales, South of Market 1.0% below on 79, Yerba Buena 2.4% below on 53, Mission Bay exactly at asking on 53. In an issue about where the overbidding is, the corridor is where it is not.	Buyer opening holds, and this issue measures exactly how wide it is.
#16	Aug 6, 2026	Flat in every window, which this issue argues is the whole point. South Beach condos read 100.0% of asking at 30, 90 and 180 days and 99.0% over the trailing year. South of Market reads 99.4, 99.8, 99.6 and 99.0. Four windows, one answer. Every house lane in this issue moved when the window moved; the corridor did not, and a segment that reads the same no matter how you slice it is a segment that is not turning.	Buyer opening holds, and now it is measured four ways instead of one.

Show the 14 earlier readings

Issue	Date	Reading	Call
#15	Aug 2, 2026	Unchanged at the bottom of the same ladder. This issue extended the over-asking gradient into small multifamily, and the corridor still anchors the low end: right at asking, while two-unit buildings cleared 11.7% over and houses 23.8%. The ordering is by how much a property lives like a house, and a corridor tower is the furthest thing from one.	Buyer opening holds, and this issue explains why it persists.
#14	Jul 29, 2026	Read on supply this time, not price. Citywide condo and townhome months of supply fell from 3.9 to 1.7 in a year and active listings from 772 to 480, so even the calmest lane in the city now offers less to choose from. This issue did not re-measure corridor pricing.	Buyer opening holds on price; the shelf behind it is thinner.
#13	Jul 25, 2026	Graduated to the essay. Back at asking for the first time since 2022, after three springs about 1% below it, and the clock changed: median market time fell from 38 days to 19 and the share selling over asking roughly doubled, from the low twenties to the mid forties. Price at par, speed doubled.	Negotiating room intact; the window now narrows in speed, not price.
#12	Jul 21, 2026	Still the calm corner, and it proves the point. District 9 condos, SoMa, Mission Bay, and South Beach, sold right at list, about 100%, with only 31% over asking on 836 sales, while mid-priced houses cleared 123 to 127% of list. Condos rarely get listed low to start a war, so the overbid never appears.	Buyer leverage holds where the list-low tactic is not used.
#11	Jul 17, 2026	Unmoved by the house story. While overbidding ran one tier below the trophy core, the corridor and condo core cleared near asking, and the two flat lanes the field named as spillover candidates, Hayes Valley and Lower Pacific Heights, stayed calm in closed data.	Still the clearest buyer opening in the city.
#10	Jul 14, 2026	Still soft while the headline is elsewhere. June's million-over-asking story is a west-side and central house market, not the AI-corridor towers. District 9 condos, SoMa, Mission Bay and South Beach, ran about 10% below last year even as volume climbed. Activity returns to the corridor; pricing has not.	Still the clearest buyer opening in the city.
#09	Jul 10, 2026	Still the soft floor at the halfway mark. District 9 condos, SoMa, Mission Bay, and South Beach, sold near 100% of list with only about 36% over asking on roughly 290 sales this year, while citywide houses ran near 121% of list. The widest lane in the city stays open.	Clearest buyer opportunity holds into the second half.
#08	Jul 5, 2026	Still the soft floor even as the top books records. District 9 condos, SoMa, Mission Bay, and South Beach, sold near 100% of list with heavy cash and light competition, while $5M+ houses set a decade volume record at about 112% of list on roughly 64% cash. Cash without a crowd here.	Buyer opportunity intact where the crowds are not.
#06	Jun 25, 2026	Still the calm corner while the house middle runs hot. District 9 condos, SoMa, Mission Bay, and South Beach, sold right at list, about 100%, with only 35% over asking on 300 sales, against the $1.5M to $3M house band at 122 to 125% of list.	Buyer opportunity holds where the bidding wars are not.
#05	Jun 21, 2026	Cash, not heat. Corridor condos carry heavier cash than the citywide condo average, about 42% versus 37%, yet still sell near 98.7% of list with only about 20% over asking versus 45% citywide. Cash concentrates here; competition does not.	Negotiating room for financed buyers.
#04	Jun 17, 2026	Still the soft floor while houses raced ahead. Corridor near 98 to 99% of list versus 103.8% citywide and about 123% for single-family in the last 30 days.	Buyer opportunity holds; the gap to houses only widened.
#03	Jun 13, 2026	Still the bottom of the overbid table. Corridor sale-to-list at about 98 to 99% versus 103.6% citywide, trailing year.	Opportunity intact for negotiators.
#02	Jun 10, 2026	Turning at the edges. Citywide condos hit 101.4% of list in May; inventory fell to 584 from 905. The corridor towers remain the soft end.	Window narrowing, not closed.
#01	Jun 7, 2026	Soft. Only 37 to 43% of SoMa, Mission Bay, and downtown condos sold over asking.	Clearest buyer opportunity in the city.

Takeaways

Of the 2,292 San Francisco house sales in the last 12 months with reported financing, 30.9% closed in cash, up from 24.9% the year before. Condos ran higher still at 36.9%, up from 34.6%. Every share in this issue counts only sales where buyer financing was actually recorded.
Cash climbs the price ladder. In the house market between $1M and $3M, roughly one sale in four or five is cash. From $3M to $5M it is about half, 48.7%, and at $5M and above it is 59.6%. Among the 27 condo sales at $5M and above, 88% closed in cash, a small sample we label directional rather than argued from.
Overbids peak exactly where cash is scarcest. The $1.5M to $2M house band sold a median 27.2% over asking with only 26.4% of sales in cash. At $5M and above, where cash dominates, the typical house closed 2.7% over asking and the typical condo closed at asking.
The cash map is a geography. The five cash-heaviest neighborhoods with reliable annual samples are the Financial District and Barbary Coast at 66.7%, North Waterfront at 58.1%, the Marina at 52.2%, Cow Hollow at 51.9% and Pacific Heights at 51.5%. All five sold within about two and a half points of asking; two sold at or below it.
The bottom of the cash list is the top of the effort list: Visitacion Valley at 10.0%, Bayview at 10.2%, the Outer Mission at 11.4%, Midtown Terrace at 11.5%, Silver Terrace at 12.5%. One neighborhood, Westwood Highlands, recorded 15 closings and not a single reported cash sale.
The tilt is a tendency, not a law. The overbid champions of the Sunset belt still run about one cash sale in four, and Central Sunset manages 36.4% cash while clearing 27.1% over asking. The strict part is the ceiling: in every neighborhood where cash reaches half of sales, the typical close is within 2.6 points of asking.
Cash share is not a demand meter. The cash-heaviest neighborhoods include the slowest markets in the city, downtown condos at a median 27 to 44 days, while mortgage neighborhoods move in about 13. Two different markets, both visible in the same field.
The practical version: sellers in low-cash neighborhoods should price for the financed crowd they will actually meet rather than a mythical cash buyer, sellers in cash-heavy segments should price to the comp and not the headline overbid, and financed buyers compete better in cash-heavy segments than the folklore says, because those segments sell at asking with time on market.

The cash share, sale-to-list and sample size for every San Francisco neighborhood are live in the market explorer, each with its reliability label. Read your own subdistrict before you price or bid.

Methodology and sources

Source: POTM Command, governed MLS analytics, as of August 11, 2026, covering 62,860 deduplicated closed San Francisco sales; 3 sale-to-list outliers and 6 quarantined events are excluded citywide. All windows in this issue are the rolling 12 months, August 12, 2025 through August 11, 2026, anchored to the most recent data pull and inclusive of the end date, with the prior-year comparison covering the preceding 12 months. Houses are single-family residences; condos include townhomes. Financing shares follow a strict reported denominator: only sales where the MLS buyer-financing field was actually recorded are counted, and blank or not-reported sales are excluded from every share rather than assumed. Cash means the field reads exactly Cash; conventional, FHA, VA, 1031 exchange and seller financing all count as financed. The field is well populated: a warehouse check on August 12, 2026 found buyer financing reported on about 99.9 percent of governed closings in the trailing twelve months, so the exclusion is small. Sale-to-list is the median across sales in the window of each sale's close price divided by its list price; medians are used throughout and nothing in this issue is an average. Price bands are by close price. Band reliability is labeled with the data: every band in the table is Strong on sample size except condos at $5M and above, 27 sales, which is labeled directional and treated as such. The neighborhood maps and neighborhood claims use the 90 MLS subdistricts; only the 76 with at least 15 closings in the window are shaded or cited, and the rest draw grey rather than guessed. The association between cash share and sale-to-list across those 76 neighborhoods is a tendency, stated as such, and no causal claim is made; this issue also deliberately makes no claim about whether an individual cash sale closes higher or lower than a financed one in the same segment, because that row-level comparison has not yet been run against the warehouse. Days on market is the MLS field as reported, never re-derived. Second sources, cited for national scale only and not for any San Francisco figure: NAR, REALTORS Confidence Index, July 2026, 26 percent of existing-home sales all cash, a buyer-survey measure; and Redfin, county-records analysis published March 2024, 34.5 percent of United States purchases all cash in February 2024. Both use different denominators from this issue's reported-financing MLS field and are not interchangeable with it. Data deemed reliable but not guaranteed, subject to change, correction, and revision. General information, not legal, tax, or financial advice, and not a forecast.